Bring Back an Appreciation of Nude Females

Not that this appreciation has ever been lacking among straight males. However, among the Militant Feminist Wing of the Current Cultural Insanity (TM) , it's become normal to decry any representation, no matter how artistic, of the unclad or partially clad female. They blur the lines -- or pretend not to understand the distinction -- between art and porn, and charge blithely ahead into Victorian-like prudery.

For instance, I caught more than a little trouble for the cover of (Prometheus Award-winning) Darkship Thieves, which the Militant Feminist Wing deemed to be "demeaning to women" for featuring a partly clad female. They thus revealed both their ignorance -- since even much better known authors than I have little to no say on their covers -- but also their hypocrisy since none of them objects to the covers of Urban Fantasy books which often feature far more suggestive covers.

This cover is highly offensive because it shows a beautiful and confident female. This means women are exploited. Or something.

I confess that while I've always been aware of what a "beautiful woman" is and I've appreciated paintings like Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, I didn't fully appreciate how the human form -- male, female, old, young, conventionally beautiful or not -- can be rendered beautiful in art.

The crazy wing of feminism would have you believe Sandro Botticelli painted this because he hated women.

Now, according to the Telegraph, efforts are afoot to make sure the female form is enjoyed as art, once more.

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘camgirl?’ Do you instantly think of Botticelli’s Venus, Manet’s Olympia and Picou’s Andromeda – beautiful, proud, sometimes tragic, nudes, lounging around in famous art galleries for the entire world to see?.................

Well thanks to 21-year-old former London College of Fashion student Vanessa Omoregie, this perception of camgirls could be about to change.

Omoregie’s tumblr blog,Camgirlsproject, invites any woman to copy the pose of a nude from a famous painting on a webcam and send it to her. She then merges the original painting and the webcam image, to create some quite visually startling, and some stunning, works.

I wish them luck, of course. Will they succeed? Probably not. I mean, most people looking at Webcams aren't doing it for the art. On the other hand, their efforts are bound to make the crazy wing of feminism even crazier, and that counts as a win in my book!